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8.30.2014

I am jonesing for some travel. This wanderlust will be satisfied in late November when I go to Australia with my extended family for almost 3 weeks. However, in general, I do not travel nearly enough.

Travel is one of my top 3 passions in life, along with music and writing. My regular readers will question why I did not list bicycling in the top 3 and that would be a valid question, but the answer is simple. Bicycling is a large subset of my penchant for travel.

A bike is a great vehicle for traveling. It is cliche, but you experience a lot more on a journey by bike than by most other forms of transport. You are more exposed to the ambient environment and your pace is slower than traveling in a motor vehicle, so you can see more yet cover more ground than you can walking. I must here note that, forced to choose, walking would be superior to driving when a bicycle is not available and the distances are manageable.

When I travel to faraway places, I like to exercise the bike option (no pun intended, honestly!) whenever possible. And I often go on bike rides locally for their own sake, to enjoy the local color.

The point is that bicycling is contained within the broader passion that is travel. So it is a part of my top 3 favorite things to do. So that said, back to the thesis of this post.

I have the wanderlust and I grow weary of not being able to indulge it often. Therefore, I need to engage the creative process that assists me in manufacturing the conditions that permit me to indulge it.

The creative process is a mechanism for manifesting desired outcomes in art and life. It is not an easy process, but it is a straightforward and logical one, with basically three steps.

1. Vision
2. Observation
3. Action

The first step is to visualize what you want. It doesn't have to be a crystal clear vision but it should be solid enough to give you a sense of direction and it should be something you are passionate about pursuing, so you will be motivated to take action.

Next, observe what you currently have and compare that to the vision. This is a compare and contrast to determine how far from the vision you are and what resources are available or needed to bring the current reality closer to the vsion.

Then, take action that you think will lead toward manifestation of the vision. Not every action will contribute to manifestation of the vision. So you need to repeat step 2 and observe present reality after each action to see if the action has brought you closer to or further from your vision. You need to be brutally honest with yourself at this stage, because reality waits for no one.

Over time, you will get closer to your vision. It may be slow going and you will undoubtedly hit obstacles in your path. But if you are truly passionate about your vision, you will find a way to go over, around, or through any obstacle.

My vision is to have a life with more travel, by bicycle or otherwise. I observe that I am traveling some but not nearly enough. I have taken a few actions that have removed some hurdles to a life road more traveled. There are more actions I can take to improve on my travel capabilities, like saving more money to pay for travel and finding employment that allows me to travel freely.

Actually, my current job is not too bad in that regard. It is contract work and if I want to go on a trip, my boss is pretty cool about encouraging it, because it is unpaid vacation and I pay my own benefits. There is no liability for them. The work needs to get done, of course, so I can't just split for an indefinite period of time. But within reason I can do some decent travel, like my nearly three weeks in Australia at the end of the year.

I am quite geeked for that and fully plan to exercise my passion for writing by travel blogging about it.